Fighting Hunger Worldwide

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Experience has shown that in the hands of women, food is most likely to

reach the mouths of children in need.

The majority of WFP’s beneficiaries are women and children. In many parts

of the world, such as Asia and South America, more women than men are

chronically hungry.

But women are also the secret weapon to beat hunger. In some

countries there are more women farmers than men. And they are most

often the ones who prepare food for the whole family.

Women are the key to improving household food security and

nutritional wellbeing.

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Providing the Right Food at the Right TimeWFP puts women – mothers, girls and adolescents –

at the front and centre of efforts to fight malnutrition,

especially in the critical first 1,000 days.

We now know that malnutrition in the first two years

of life, starting in the mother’s womb, can lead to

irreversible damage to children’s minds and bodies.

WFP nourishes children and adults through the

whole life cycle. It’s an investment in the next

generation.

Malnourished mothers are more likely to die in

childbirth. And mothers who were undernourished

as girls are 40 percent more likely to give birth to

children who do not survive to age five. This is called

inter-generational undernutrition.

Undernourished children are more likely to get sick,

have trouble concentrating in school, and when they

grow up, they often earn less money. So WFP targets

its food interventions to reach pregnant women and

mothers of small children to make sure they get the

right food at the right time.

Using Special Products

We have scaled up the use of special products

specially designed to boost nutrition in the

under-twos. We use vitamin-packed peanut pastes,

for example, and Wawa Mum, a locally-produced

chickpea product developed by WFP, to fight and

prevent malnutrition.

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The Power of School Meals

An extra year of primary school boosts girls’

eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year

of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.

WFP’s school meals and take-home rations provide

an incentive to families to send their girls to school

and to nourish them while there. A hungry girl finds

it difficult to concentrate, is unable to learn or

may not even be able to go to school because she has

to stay at home to do housework. She may have to

work to help her family eat.

School meals and take-home rations help keep

girls in schools, and lower dropout rates. Keeping

adolescent girls in schools gives them a better

education and contributes to raising the age at

which they marry or have children.

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Women are responsible for almost half of the

world’s food production and in some developing

countries they make up 60 percent of the agricultural

labour force.

Yet women receive only a fraction of the credit

made available to the agricultural sector. They get

fewer tools and less training.

Adding Value

Working with partners, WFP supports women

farmers by providing seeds, fertilizer, access to

finance, markets and support for processing X which

gives products added value.

WFP encourages women to cultivate kitchen gardens

to increase the range of foods their families eat, or

vegetable gardens to increase their income and grow

food for use in school meals programmes.

WFP Helps Women Farmers

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Purchase for Progress (P4P)

Purchase for Progress is an innovative initiative that

supports smallholder farmers – particularly women

– by helping them become competitive players in the

market place.

Under P4P, WFP buys agricultural produce from

farmers at a fair price and encourages smallholders

to increase and improve the quality of production.

As the largest humanitarian agency in the world,

WFP purchases food for distribution in its assistance

programmes and increasingly it is buying from small

farmers. The P4P pilot in 21 countries seeks to turn

WFP’s local food procurement into a tool for working

on long-term solutions to hunger and poverty.

WFP programmes and initiatives, like P4P, are

designed with women in mind, to make sure they are

involved and have a voice.

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WFP’s Gender Policy

An evaluation of WFP’s Gender Policy found that:

“Unlike many United Nations and donor agencies,

WFP [has gone] beyond rhetoric to require specific,

strategic actions at the operational level. This

resulted in increased visibility and inclusion of

women, and laid strong foundations for gender

mainstreaming.”

Gender equality is not merely socially desirable: it is

critical to the reduction of poverty and hunger and it

is linked to the achievement of WFP’s strategic

objectives. WFP seeks to promote gender equality

and the empowerment of women.

The Gender Policy commits WFP to:

• Continue providing food assistance for pregnant

women, nursing mothers, children under five and

adolescent girls

• Continue making women the food entitlement

holders

• Continue facilitating the participation of women in

food distribution committees

• Continue improving access to education and

reducing the gender gap in schools.

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EmpoweringWomen

WFP is dedicated to lifting women out of food

insecurity. Beyond emergency food assistance, where

WFP is saving the lives of women every day, there

are many programmes, worldwide, that empower

and protect women and girls.

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Printed: March 2011 Design by CP Publications Unit

Photo credits: Front cover: WFP/Rein Skullerud/Kenya Back cover: WFP/Micah Albert/Yemen Graphic, page 2, clockwise from top: WFP/Rein Skullerud/Haiti, WFP/AK Kimoto/Cambodia, WFP/Mike Bloem/Kenya, WFP/Rein Skullerud/Kenya

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